


Particles

by bbybjaem



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Drug Addiction, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Jaemin is going thru it rn, Lee Jeno is Whipped, M/M, Suicide Attempt, Toxic Relationships, and too kind for his own good, but at the end, mention of drugs, pls i tried my best to desconstruct his character and show that he has some sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 04:14:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21293465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bbybjaem/pseuds/bbybjaem
Summary: Jaemin is in too deep on his addiction and Jeno wants to help him, even if that's not the smartest idea.
Relationships: Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 62





	Particles

**Author's Note:**

> this is heavily inspired in the song Particles by Nothing But Thieves and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND Y'ALL TO CHECK IT OUT
> 
> also, pls guys, this is a clear display of a toxic relationship and I in no way intended to romanticize it, I just wanted to talk about how people who are lost in their own problems needs support, and most times, they convince themselves they are not worthy of that. You shouldn't get into a relationship with someone that's sick and refuses to seek help (this is not the case here).

Lee Jeno has the most beautiful smile Jaemin has ever seen. The way his cheeks lift up and his candid eyes turn into two crescents, how it always comes with a set of sweet, endearing giggles that seem to light up the room.

That’s the only thing that crosses Jaemin’s head when he’s laid down on his beaten down sofa, surrounded by beer cans and sporting a white nose. His most precious memories, replaying in his head over and over again, always the same smile of the same man.

Oh, how he wishes he could see that one more time. Or one last time, at least.

Jaemin, contrary to popular belief, is anything but dumb; he knows how much he fucked up and disappointed everyone in his life, he knows he's weaker than he prided himself, and he also knows he’s in too deep his addiction to crawl back to light right now.

He can feel every inch of muscle on his body getting rigid as the clock ticks, he feels the adrenaline running out and his happy moment going away, slowly enough that he can tell, but not fast enough that he won't suffer while missing being high. In a minute all his bad thoughts will come back and he’ll be laid there, relentless against them; the easiest prey, hunted non-stop by his own mind that thrives on making him miserable, overthinking everything there is to overthink.

He can’t let that happen, not again. He needs to feel happy, he needs to escape, to live another day, to wait another day. He knows that if his thoughts, his real thoughts, catches up to him, he’ll be done for.

And Jeno wouldn’t like that.

Jeno wouldn’t like to get a call on a random day from a random hospital and find out his number was on Jaemin’s emergency list. He wouldn’t like to be bothered on what could be the best day of his life, because Jaemin was found dead for whatever miserable reason. Jeno wouldn’t like to be forced to deal with Jaemin’s bullshit even after he’s gone, and because of that, because he doesn’t want to be a burden to his dear Jeno, Jaemin reaches for another pin and the glass square on his coffee table.

In a couple minutes, all those thoughts will be far, far away from him and he’ll be thinking about the prettiest smile he’s ever seen again. He’ll be happy again and won’t be a burden to anyone. That’s all people ask of him, after all, to stay alive and not to cause trouble to anyone.

He downs the rest of his mildly warm beer and it’s disgusting, but he gulps it down anyways, and as he’s about to get up to fetch another one in his kitchen, he hears the familiar sound of his phone dinging somewhere.

For a moment or two he tries to recall where he left it or when was the last time he checked his messages, but everything that comes to his mind is the memory of how he checked his phone from hour to hour, and no one bothered to reply to him. At some point he just gave up and left his phone behind, deciding not to care anymore if someone would bother to check up on him.

It dings again, loudly, and Jaemin can’t help but groan, irritated. No one cared about him before, but suddenly they can’t wait a minute until Jaemin finds his goddamn cellphone.

**Lovely Acorn, 7:39pm:**

Jaemin, your doctor called me again, have you been going to your appointments?

Don’t tell me you’re not, or else I’m taking you by the hand next time.

**Lovely Acorn, 7:54pm:**

Have you been eating properly recently?

**Lovely Acorn, 7:56pm:**

I hope you’re drinking anything that’s not beer

Istg if I find out you only drank beer since the last time I checked up on you

**Lovely Acorn, 8:02pm:**

Jaemin?

Why aren’t you replying?

**Lovely Acorn, 8:15pm:**

Are you asleep?

**Donghyuck (do not reply), 9:11pm:**

Yo, dipshit, can u reply to Jeno already? He’s pestering me about how ur doc keeps calling him and u won’t reply like ever

Also, he wants to get over there and see if ure alive

I keep telling him no, but he’s goddamn insistent, even with that mf storm outside

**Donghyuck (do not reply), 9:27pm:**

Can u reply at least a letter

Like

A

Just that and we’ll know ure fine and Jeno will stop bothering me

**Donghyuck (do not reply), 9:36pm:**

Thanks for nothing.

Jeno’s coming over rn

Gd luck

Donghyuck’s last message was from two minutes ago, which means in about half an hour Jeno would be knocking on his door and _fuck, _that’s the last thing Jaemin needs right now. He can feel the adrenaline seeping into his system, kicking all his alarms off, setting his body on flames, like pure fire running through his veins.

And oh god, that surely is _not _the effect he wanted right now.

He wants happy memories and happy thoughts, a good tickling on his skin and the sensation of being high and thriving on pure happiness; instead, he gets a shot of pure anxiety and suddenly Jaemin can’t stay put.

He needs to clean things, he needs to get rid of everything that wouldn’t make Jeno happy. He needs to throw the cans and all the bits and remnants of cigarette away, needs to get rid of the putrid smell around every room in his small apartment, needs to pretend he’s not living off of take-outs and pizza, needs to pretend he’s fine right now and not completely high, nearly delirious.

Jeno will be over anytime soon and the clock ticks quicker every second, running faster and faster just to mock Jaemin, to fuck him over and make him look like a goddamn loser in front of Jeno. He can’t have that, if Jeno sees him living like that he won’t give Jaemin any pretty smiles that lights up any room, he’ll be sad and disappointed.

Jaemin doesn’t like those feelings, not even the slightest. He can’t have those, he needs the good ones.

It’s madness, he feels like a mad person right now, running around his apartment without even feeling his legs.

He knows he’s running through rooms because his eyes says so, but even them seem to capture things in slow motion right now and for a hot second Jaemin doesn’t knows what’s happening, if the world is suddenly slowing down or if he is. He doesn’t know if all his senses are playing a trick on him, but that’s exactly how it feels and then, in a quick second that turns everything upside down, Jaemin is lost in his own house.

The bag full of trash falls from his hands and spills everything around, but he doesn’t care. Jaemin is not in charge of anything anymore, right now.

He falls mercilessly on his ass and crawls until his back hits the wall. In a second his knees are pressed hard against his chest, Jaemin’s bawling his eyes and he only notices that because there are big, round wet marks on his adidas track pants, but he can’t feel the tears running down his cheeks, dripping from his chin or even spilling from his eyes incessantly.

It’s like he’s watching everything unfold from afar and all of that madness is not happening to the real him.

_“Jaemin?” _There’s a sweet, familiar voice calling for him somewhere, but he can’t quite tell where. He looks up, but his vision takes a while to go from the floor to the ceiling, or any point upwards at all, looking for whoever called him.

He can’t see anything and for a moment, for a terrifying moment Jaemin thinks this is it, he’s gone insane and he’s projecting Jeno’s voice like he’s there, clad in shining armor and ready to save him.

Then he feels warm arms wrapping around his shoulders and everything stops. His mind goes blank for a second that felt like a minute or an hour. He can hear again, the loud sound of heavy panting against his ear, the murmurs of someone talking to him, but his mind can’t tell what right away.

Jaemin feels the arms holding him tighter, closer and so, so warm it’s comforting, reassuring.

“Jaemin, Jaemin talk to me, please” It’s Jeno. Jaemin can hear somewhere in the back of his mind alarms blaring, red and deafening, but not enough to take Jaemin out of his stupor that _Jeno’s here. _“Talk to me, what’s happening?! Is everything ok? C’mon, man, breathe with me, one, two...”

He can see Jeno is in front of him now, holding his shoulders and making a bunch of movements, signaling him to do the same, and so Jaemin does. Because it’s Jeno, and maybe if he doesn’t do as he says, he’ll be disappointed in him.

And Jaemin can't have that, can't have Jeno disappointed in him, not Jeno.

Slowly, but surely, everything falls back into place and Jaemin can feel his legs again, the dry spots of tears on his skin and smell all the putrid smells that hang around his house, and he feels _shame. _

Jeno has seen him at his lowest point now. And he most definitely must not like being here or seeing all of this right now.

Still, Jaemin holds onto the arms that clings to his shoulders for dear life. “Jeno…” He can’t let go, but he can’t face Jeno either, so he shoves his face on the older’s chest and hides from everything that could hurt him right now. Jeno’s stare, Jeno’s emotions that he carries on his sleeves, his own thoughts. Jaemin doesn’t want any of those right now, he can’t deal with any of those right now.

“Jaemin, what happened?” His voice is calm and understanding like a mother’s, but Jaemin can tell all the disappointment lacing it, every thought that runs through Jeno’s mind right now.

_“What the fuck are you doing right now?”; “what the hell happened to this place?”; “you promised me you’d try to be better”; “why am I seeing you like this if you promised me?”; “why are you breaking your promises?”_

“Why?” is all Jaemin can manage right now, a weak, shamefully cracked voice that can barely speak what’s inside of him. It doesn't feel like he's the one talking, it feels foreign, and weird, and Jaemin wishes he could stop feeling like that so badly, he wishes Jeno could make him feel better, but he can't have his dearest person seeing him like that, Jeno can't _be here right now. _“Why are you here?”

“You weren’t replying to me, or answering any of my calls for the past week. I was worried sick that something had happened to you!” Jaemin looks up and he’s met with a pair of eyes, the same ones he used to love and admire for always being so filled with kindness, and now there’s only worry and disappointment spilling from them.

“You should go.” Jeno makes a noise of confusion and he’s about to speak again when Jaemin beats him to it. His mind already knows everything there is to come and exactly what Jeno is about to say; he doesn’t need to actually hear anything from him. He can’t. “You’ve seen me now, you know I’m alive. So, go away.”

“What kind of bullshit are you talking right now, Na Jaemin? I’m not going anywhere, I’m staying here with you until I know for sure that you’re doing better.”

It’s such a Jeno thing to do, that Jaemin is not even surprised or caught off guard. He looks straight into Jeno’s eyes and, for the first time, he sees it filled with kindness once again, because that’s exactly who Jeno is: the kindest person in existence, who would willingly put himself in a highly uncomfortable situation and force himself to stay there until everything falls into its right place once again.

Jaemin admires that detail about him so much.

Then a minute passes and Jaemin can see the emotions switching in Jeno’s eyes for something akin to sadness. Gentle hands frames his face and Jaemin feels himself go rigid. He doesn’t know what’s going on or what Jeno just saw that made him so sad all of a sudden, but Jaemin can feel his thumb running across his cheek, ever so delicately – like Jaemin is something fragile and he’s terrified he might break it.

Jaemin feels one thumb wiping his nose and suddenly he’s very aware of what caught Jeno’s attention; he closes his eyes and cries silently, so utterly ashamed that Jeno, his sweet Jeno, is wiping cocaine off his nose right now. He feels dirty and unworthy of those gentle touches, he wants to slap Jeno’s hand away, to yell at him to stop drying his tears and to get away from here because he is not worthy in the slightest of all of Jeno’s worries, but he can’t. He’s too selfish for that.

Even if his shame kills him, he could never tell Jeno to find someone else better.

Like the angel Lee Jeno himself is, he doesn’t say a word. He silently pulls Jaemin closer and let him cry as much as he wants on his shoulder while his hands rub soothing circles on his back.

It’s all too much, Jaemin’s head pounds and he wants to shy away, but Jeno is so warm and he smells like home. Jaemin feels safe in his arms and there is no place in the world he’d rather be right now.

Eventually he feels himself calming down and his mind stops screaming at him; he feels at peace, one that no drug in the world could ever make him feel.

He feels like he just reached his safe place, and it’s inside Jeno’s arms.

“Can you get up? Do you think you’ll feel comfortable getting out of this house right now?” Jaemin gave him a weak, uncertain nod, and right after that Jeno was helping him stand up and dragging Jaemin out of there.

Breathing fresh air at that moment felt like a dream to Jaemin. He couldn’t tell how many days has it been since he last walked out of his house, but given how he felt like he was breathing for the first time in his life, he could guess it’s been a while.

Jeno kept saying words of encouragement to Jaemin, repeating that Jaemin was doing well so far and how proud he was of him, but Jaemin wasn’t really listening. Everything turned into white noise while his mind ran furiously trying to catch up to what’s happening and where Jeno was leading him, trying to understand that he was leaving his house behind and everything he owns and how he _doesn't know _if he's ever coming back to it. His minds starts racing once again, creating scenarios over scenarios and overthinking everything and Jaemin just wanted it all to _stop_.

They take the elevator and descends nine floors until the door opens and Jaemin recognizes they’re in the building’s parking lot, for some reason. “What are we doing here? Where are we going?”

“I’m gonna take care of you, Jaem. I’m gonna make sure you’re ok.”

Jaemin wakes up to beige walls that looks nothing like the grey ones in his room, clean ceilings and an irritating beep right beside his ears. He blinks twice and his brain already recognizes that he’s back in the hospital, once again, under the same circumstances.

Jeno is right beside him this time though, sound asleep slouched in a brown chair and, curiously, holding his hand.

For a second Jaemin thinks that’s the most endearing thing he’s seen in a while, then his mind recollects bits and tips of last night, of his mental breakdown, of Jeno wiping drugs off his nose, of himself being so out of it he couldn’t even think straight. The second after, Jaemin is seriously considering every fast way to end himself so he doesn’t have to face Jeno or any of the consequences of his actions.

His heart beat skyrockets the more he remembers all the events of last night, and the irritating sound of the machine gets louder, insufferable, to the point that it wakes Jeno up – and Jeno wasn’t even close to being a light sleeper.

“You’re awake… “ he makes it sound like it’s a miracle that Jaemin is alive and awake, as if this wasn’t the second, maybe even third episode of him losing control of his addictions and ending up in the hospital. “God, I was so worried, Jaemin! You motherfucker, don’t ever do that to me again!”

Jaemin wasn’t ready to hold a crying Jeno in his arms, and the bunch of strings connecting him to machines and medicines didn’t help either – but he would never complain. He lets Jeno cry on his shoulder and cuss at him for as long as he wants, he feels like he deserves it after all he’s done.

It takes a while, but Jeno finally detaches himself from Jaemin and cradles his face gently, inspecting his face like he’s taking a picture of Jaemin right then and keeping it safe in his mind. His eyes looks filled to the brim with tears, and love, and fear, Jaemin feels a shiver run down his spine upon seeing that.

“I’m so glad that you’re alive. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Suddenly Jaemin is very aware of how dry his throat feels and he looks away, coughing. Sometimes Lee Jeno is too much for him, and his words find new ways to get to his heart and make him flustered as ever.

“Um, I… can you get me some water… please” Jeno’s eyes grows impossibly big and he suddenly jumps to his feet, away from Jaemin, scrambling to get some water while managing to call a nurse to check up on Jaemin.

A fond smile creeps up to his face when he sees the nurse arriving and Jeno hovering around her, checking up on Jaemin himself and asking every second if he’s alright. Jaemin feels dead, like a truck ran over him twice, back and forth; like someone made him swallow a whole sponge and now it’s stuck in his throat, but on top of that, he feels his head pound like crazy with every little sound.

But either way, Jeno’s worried voice doesn’t make his head pound, seeing him scrambling around trying to help in any way he can makes his heart leap and spin in his chest and, as if everything didn’t hurt enough already, makes his stomach churn too.

It was a bright day outside, with the sun high in the sky and no clouds anywhere in sight, but still, Jaemin refused to go out the first three times Jeno tried persuading him into taking a walk in the hospital garden, a small area filled with bright flowers, tall trees and white benches.

Jaemin hates that place, only thinking about going there again takes him back to times when everything felt so much more unbearable and people took him there to talk about unpleasant things in a pleasant place. Things such as how he feels, what goes through his mind, and what makes him do the things he does – resort to all kinds of drugs to cope with his problems.

All the topics he really, _really _didn’t like opening up about, because it always made him face every nasty thing that lives inside of him.

“A little sun will be good for you, Jaemin-ah!” But it’s Jeno who’s asking him to go to the gardens, not his doctor, not his therapist. And Lee Jeno is his, always admittedly, weak spot, so Jaemin complies.

They end up taking a short stroll down the narrow path between light pink lilies and peonies, until they find a nice spot on a bench right under the cool shadow of a tree and Jeno thinks it’s good enough, so he sits them down and stays silent.

It’s not an unpleasant kind of silence – nothing is unpleasant to Jaemin when Jeno is involved. He feels at ease, not pressured to talk for the first time in the middle of all those flowers. It feels like the calmness before the storm to Jaemin, as always and everything in his life, but for a solid moment he wishes everything would stay calm forever, so he can bask in the delight of being here, being sober, even if for a second.

“I don’t understand why you do all these things to yourself.” Jeno starts and Jaemin freezes. He’s never, ever talked about his addiction problems with Jeno. Not directly, not even when Jeno visited him in the hospital on his last episode. They always avoided the topic and tried to leave all that happened in the past, dead and buried; but this time it seem that Jeno wants to attack the elephant in the room, so he takes a deep breath and goes on. “I don’t understand, and it hurts me to see you destroying yourself more and more each day. I wanna help you, but it seems like every time I try to reach out to you, you push me away and build another wall around you. You went MIA for a week Jaemin, a whole week! Do you have any idea of how I felt every time I texted you, called you and you didn’t reply? Not even a single text, or a signal that you were ok, that you…” he doesn’t finish his sentence, but Jaemin can tell exactly what hangs in the air: _that you didn’t leave me._

He doesn’t have an answer for that, because Jaemin didn’t, in fact, think about what Jeno felt all the while he went missing. He was too busy trapped inside his bubble of selfishness, drugs and cozy memories to think about the present, about real life. He tries so hard every day to run away from the ghosts in his own mind that he easily forgets about everyone that’s around him, willing to help.

Jaemin is beyond the stage that only being surrounded by people is enough to distract him from his toxic mind. At some point in life, it just stopped working and he had to take other ways to support everything; he just couldn’t let Jeno inside this life he lives right now, because he knew with all his heart that Jeno deserves way, way more than that.

Jeno takes his silence as a cue to go on, even if choking on his own cry and with a breaking voice. “I can’t do this Jaemin, I like you too much to just step aside and watch you kill yourself slowly like this. Please, please let me in, let me help you get out of this, I–“

“No.” Jaemin is resolute. He avoids Jeno’s eyes on purpose right now because he knows just how broken he must look right now, but he can’t back down. “No, I don’t want your help, Jeno. I can’t do this to you.”

“Do _what _to me?! I’m trying to help you!”

“I can’t drag you into this mess!”

“I want to be in this mess!”

“You don’t!” Jaemin screams this time, all his thin patience, now gone. “You don’t know what you’re talking about! You’ve seen me one time at my lowest, wasn’t that enough for you to understand that you deserve way better?! That you deserve someone that’s not broken, that doesn’t need to be high to bear being alive” Jeno is silent for a long second and Jaemin cries in the meanwhile, out of anger. “I don’t want to drag you into this, because I like you too much, too. I like you too much and I am one selfish motherfucker, but I know better than to make you suffer by being with me. There’s not even one ounce of my existence that’s not toxic and this is not something you should be involved with, I want you to be happy, to be treated right, to be kissed and loved tenderly, and I want to be the one who will give you all of that, but I can’t. I just can’t do that if I don’t have cocaine in my system. Do you understand how fucked up this is?! Do you even consider the fact that you wiped fucking _drugs _out of my nose just yesterday? Is this a person you wanna help, you wanna have by your side?!”

A long, agonizing silence stretches between the two of them and Jaemin thinks he’s finally made Jeno see reality as it is. He couldn’t possibly make Jeno go through all the ups and downs he, himself goes through on a daily basis, that wouldn’t be healthy for him, or even fair in the slightest, and there’s only so much of a jerk that Jaemin acknowledges himself to be.

Jaemin feels a hand covering his own, careful and warm, a gentle reminder of Jeno’s presence as it is. “I don’t care.”

“What–“

“I don’t care Jaemin. I don’t want you facing this all alone, I wanna be by your side and lift you up every time you fall and I wanna be there to see all your achievements too. Tell me what you accomplished by locking yourself away from everyone. Three emergency check-ins in the hospital; a bunch of missing appointments with your therapists; you nearly died of overdose once! I want to make sure that won’t happen anymore. You tried it your way, why not try it my way now? I know you can do better than this, Na Jaemin, because I believe in you.”

“You clearly don’t know what you’re talking about right now; you’re saying you willingly want to walk into a relationship with a toxic person.”

“You’re only toxic to yourself–”

“And I can’t be good for you when I’m like that!” Jaemin is getting desperate, Jeno is too damn stubborn and he just wants him to _understand _this is not right! This is not how a relationship is supposed to be. “You want to be my babysitter, is that it?!”

“No!”

“Then I don’t understand what you want! A relationship is not about helping someone to get out of a hole they digged for themselves! You’ll only harm yourself like that, Jeno!”

“I won’t.”

“You will! Because you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, you don’t know how fucked up I am; heck, maybe you don’t even know if you like the real me–“

Jaemin doesn’t get to finish his sentence because suddenly Jeno is pressing himself against him, kissing Jaemin.

Their lips are dry and flat against one another at first, weird and not pleasing, yet somehow, it also doesn’t feel _wrong. _Then Jaemin’s mind starts working again and he’s all too aware that _Lee Jeno is kissing him right now! _And against all kinds of rational thoughts than runs through his mind, he pushes himself against Jeno too, readjusting their positions and opening his lips just a bit so they can connect the right way and, _fuck, he’s really kissing Lee Jeno right now._

His lips are as soft as they seem, and Jeno kisses him gently, moving his lips with such a devotion to Jaemin’s mouth that he feels like he hit heaven for a second and came back. Jeno’s hands travel up and tangles itself in Jaemin’s hair, keeping him from backing away when he open his mouth and licks Jaemin’s bottom lip, asking for permission to take things to another level – to which Jaemin complies without thinking twice.

Kissing Jeno is just like everything he ever dreamed. He tastes like the bread and jelly they had for breakfast and his tongue is ever so willing to let Jaemin set the pace of their kiss; Jeno is pliant under his touch and it sets something inside Jaemin on fire, insane and _hungry _for more.

So he lays Jeno against the back of the bench and hovers over him, looking at his flushed face and swollen lips for a second, burning that image into his memory so it lasts forever. Then he’s diving in again for another kiss, more heated this time, with hands sneaking under shirts and nails scraping napes, making Jaemin release an undignified sound in between their kisses.

“We don’t have to label anything,” Jeno says once they break apart for air, hair disheveled and breath uneven, but still looking stunning as ever. “I just can’t let you do these things to yourself.” Jeno takes Jaemin’s hands in his and brings it to his chest, laying his palm flat against his heart. Jaemin felt it beating rapidly under his hand, he can’t even imagine how many beats per second, but it’s crazy and it’s endearing. “This is beating this fast because, heck– I just had the courage to kiss the Na Jaemin, and I feel like I’m up in the clouds right now! But I can’t stress enough how fast it beat and _hurt _when you went missing. I can’t feel like that again, I want you to be happy and have a will to live, Jaemin, and I’m willing to go through hell and heaven to make you feel like that. You deserve to be loved too.”

Jaemin is crying, fat tears streaming down his face with each word, but so is Jeno and he can’t let that happen, so he leans in and kisses each trail of tear on his cheeks, delicately and careful, like Jeno deserves to be treated.

“I can’t promise you’ll fix me.” He says, looking down, ashamed of himself. “And it won’t be easy or quick, I swear it won’t be Jeno, I’ve been living like this for years now. But if you promise me– if you promise me that whenever this whole fucked up situation becomes too much, you’ll put yourself first; then in that case…”

Jeno’s smile stretches impossibly wide and Jaemin can’t help but smile too upon seeing that, kissing him once again just to emphasize exactly how much he feels for Lee Jeno and his too big of a heart.

“We’ll fix you together, Jaemin.”

Jaemin doesn’t know what he ever did to deserve this man in his life, such a kind soul that sees him past his addiction and is willing to bring Jaemin back to life when even Jaemin himself had lost all hopes in doing so. Everything he knew about happiness, for a long while now, involves drugs and alcohol, being high off his senses and knocking out for hours on end only to wake up in random hospitals.

But Jeno, Jeno is willing to stretch his patience for as long as it’s needed just so Jaemin can learn again that happiness means something else and he can get it in many other ways that wouldn’t probably kill him sooner or later.

“You’re not real, Lee Jeno.”

“I am real, and I am yours.”

And maybe, just maybe, Jaemin can now picture a light at the end of this dark tunnel he put himself into.


End file.
